I was offered a contract today.I haven’t signed it yet and I’m incredibly
scared of the offer going away for some reason so I won’t mention the team just
yet.However I’m traveling tomorrow to
go sign the contract so I should be able to let you guys know soon enough.The contract is for a net sum of
$1500/month.Of course I won’t be paid
in US dollars but that’s the equivalent amount.I will also be given an apartment, so my only real expense will be
food.Maybe I can work out a deal with a
restaurant once I arrive.
This offer means that my time in Enkoping is definitely
over.I pretty much knew that before,
but it’s kind of hitting me now.While I
wasn’t in Enkoping for long, I did make a few pretty good friends and I will
miss them.I will see them in the
future, but it’s a bit weird to know that some of the other guys I will never
see again.The same way there are plenty
of guys from my Harrisburg and Crystal Palace Baltimore teams that I will never
see again.I guess it’s just part of the
job.My teammates are really just
co-workers, and if one of us changes jobs then that’s it.We just go our separate ways.It’s a part of this life and I just have to
accept it.
I can’t say I’m too sad though.I’m going to a good opportunity and success
at this club could mean really big things for my career.I expect that I will have success, but then
again I would expect that even if I was going to La Liga or the Bundesliga; I
have a confidence that can never be destroyed.It wavers sometimes, but nothing/no one will ever take my
self-confidence.That will never happen.
That’s enough with the mystery.I’ll be traveling tomorrow but maybe I can
get a post up in a few days once I’ve sorted everything.Please send happy thoughts my way, because if
this offer comes off the table between now and the time I can sign it then I
will be really down in the dumps.I wish
I could sign the contract right now, but it will have to wait at least until
tomorrow afternoon.As soon as I get to
the new club I will try to sign the contract before they realize I’m not any
good!Haha the reveal of the team is
coming in the next post!
And last but not least, today’s meme. It's actually a photobomb, but it sums up how I feel right now. No need to dwell on the semantics.
My time in Sweden seems very much to be coming to an
end.I have a trial scheduled for later
this week in Finland and nothing after that.I’m a bit wary of that because my ankle is still not so good.If that trial doesn’t work out then I
honestly don’t know what I’ll do.I
guess I’ll just email every team in Europe until someone responds, but even
then I have no idea where I’d stay in the interim time.London I guess.But as of now I have 32-33 days to find a
team, impress them and sign a contract.That’s really not a lot of time.It gives me the possibility to have three, maybe four trials if I’m
lucky.I’m already stressed about that;
I can’t imagine what I’ll be like if things are the same in two weeks.Even if I don’t find a team, I’ll still
probably try to stay in Europe and get a job, likely in England because of the
language, as a newspaper reporter or something (I have a degree in journalism).
Ok, tangent--------------------------------
For Americans who follow soccer, it is common knowledge that
England is the highest paying country for soccer.It is also common knowledge that it is almost
impossible for Americans to get a work permit, because those who apply for a
work permit to join a soccer team must pass rigorous guidelines which I won’t
outline here.All you need to know is
that I have a better chance of having a baby (like me actually having the baby)
than getting a work permit to play in England.But there’s always been something that I’ve wondered:
Can I get regular work permission in England (like a green
card equivalent), then use that to qualify to play in England?
I don’t see any reason to deny me to play for a League 1 or
League 2 team if they want me and I already have active work permission in
England.On top of that, it seems a bit
unlikely that at that level anyone would even notice.At the same time, a League 1 team in England
could pay salaries of like 6000-10,000 pounds a month.That would be a sizeable raise for me without
being an unreasonable raise in quality of play (from the highest I've played I should say. It would be a big jump from division 1 in Sweden).I mean the top attacker in League 1 last year was 36-years-old.That doesn’t discourage me from thinking I can
play there.So my point is that if I don’t
find a team by September 1, then maybe I’ll go to London, stay with Celia (I
haven’t run this plan by her, in case you were wondering lol) and work at a
newspaper.There’s like 100 of them in
London anyway and I’m good at writing news stories.Much better than I am at writing
stream-of-consciousness blogs J.
End of tangent-----------------------------
I trained today with ESK since I didn’t have anything else
to do.I’m pretty much just killing time
until I leave Wednesday.I paid Robert
for his bike, which was stolen while I was in London.That sucked, paying for a bike because it got
stolen a week before I was leaving. I
could have kept that money in my pocket by keeping the bike at my house when I
went to London rather than leaving it locked up at the train station.Oh well, you live and you learn.There’s criminals everywhere, even Enkoping.
Tomorrow I will train again and then I’m off to
Finland.I’m looking forward to telling
you where I’m going, but nothing is 100% clear at the moment.Developments are happening all the time and
for that reason there’s no point in trying to look too far into the
future.Maybe I’ll do the trial this
weekend or maybe I’ll sign tomorrow for another club entirely.Or maybe everything will fall through and put
me back at square one.The last scenario
is by far the worst for me, but would probably make for the most interesting
blog.
No pictures because I’m literally sitting in Enkoping
wishing I had more money.I’ll put a
meme instead. A USA-themed one because of the Olympics. It's from the hilarious Comedy Central show "Workaholics". Enjoy!
Well I’ve got news, but unfortunately it’s not good
news.Not necessarily negative, but
certainly not good.I flew back to
Sweden Thursday and met with ESK’s GM on Friday morning.We had a very brief chat in which he told me
that the club has no money and that they would not be offering me an
extension.Of course, that lack of money
didn’t stop them from signing two new players, but what do I know?This was unexpected, but not an unwelcome
development for me.I had resolved to
leave ESK quite a long time ago and I’ve been able to secure a few trials.Speaking of which…
Yesterday I started my first trial, with Vasby United of the
same league as ESK.Today it ended.More on that in a bit.As you may recall, I mentioned that Vasby and
IK Sirius were the best teams in the league, though Vasby is in the bottom half
of the standings and has very little chance of being promoted to Superettan
this year.To train and trial with Vasby
though is still a good opportunity.They
are a club with resources and ambition, so it’s a good place to train and play,
even if they aren’t going to likely win the league.There’s a big problem though.My ankle.
My ankle has been bothering me ever since I injured it in my
last game with ESK two weeks ago.I was
only able to go for a jog a few days ago, but the ankle is at about 70% right
now.I can get through a training, but I’m
certainly not impressive.This is a big
problem because I have to stand out in order to get a contract offer from
Vasby.They already have 22-23 players
contracted so they won’t be signing anyone just to do it.That said, obviously I got the trial because
Vasby has seen me play multiple times and was interested.That’s what made it so strange when after
training today the coach asked to speak with me.
I had just played very well in training despite my ankle
being injured.We did all small sided
stuff, and the only time I could really show was as an extra player in a 6v6+1
game to goal at the end.In this drill I
was brilliant and created goal after goal, though I didn’t score any
myself.That’s because as the all-time
offense player, I tended to stay in the middle of the field.That way, if the team I was with suddenly
lost the ball, then I wouldn’t be in a position where I’d normally be counted
upon to defend.
My point is I played at the highest level I possibly could
considering the ankle.And the coach knew
about the ankle via the physio.So you
can imagine my surprise when he told me that I would not be continuing my
trial.He told me that I was more of a 2nd
striker, not a “#9” which is what they are looking for.That’s fine, in fact it’s true, but how would
he know that?I had only trained for two
days and we never played on a full-size field.In small sided games, there really isn’t a way to play as a #9.There’s no space to create and you end up
playing with a lot of interchangeable midfielders.In addition, they’ve seen me play at least
twice, and every time they will have seen me playing as a winger.What made them bring me in to train?And if they wanted me to be a #9 and not a
winger, then why not tell me?You just
see me play great then say, “Well, he’s good enough but we’ve already got 5
wingers.”I don’t get it at all and I
feel like this trial was a total waste of my time.I am not a #9 in the traditional sense.I can play as a center forward in a 1 forward
system, but I cannot play as a big bruiser and ball winner.I can play the position using my speed and
intelligence to keep the center backs occupied, much like I did in college.
I know I mentioned that I loved my time in England with
Celia.Now, I feel like I left too
soon.I assumed that I’d be offered a
contract extension from ESK and even if I didn’t accept it, I figured I’d still
perhaps be forced to train the last couple days of the month or be fined.That’s why I left London when I did.I could just as well have had my meeting with
the ESK GM on the phone and not done the Vasby trial until my ankle fully
healed.Nothing would have been
different.In fact, things may very well
have been better because I could have shown myself properly when I actually had
the trial.Or sorted out what they were
looking for before I arrived.Instead, I
ended up stuck in Enkoping, paying ridiculous money to take a 90 minute each
way public transit journey to trial with a team while I’m effectively injured.If I was going to waste my money, I’d buy the
Olympic swimming competition tickets for the very top where you can’t even see
the pool.Not take a train and two buses
to suburban Stockholm and back.
Lastly, I’ll go a bit off topic and talk about the Olympic
Games.I have always been a huge fan of
the Olympics, in part because track and field always seem to be a big event and
I’ve always been fast.I remember
watching Michael Johnson break those world records (200m, 400m) in Atlanta and
how crazy my dad went over that.He ran
track in high school and college and admired Johnson’s ability.My pops also ran with Edwin Moses in high
school.Moses went on to become the
greatest 400m hurdler of all time.I’ve
met Moses.Maybe meet isn’t the right
word because I was a baby, but I’ve been in his presence.I dreamed of running in the Olympics long
before I dreamed of playing in the World Cup.
The way things are going at the moment, I have half a mind
to just go back to London and soak up the Olympic atmosphere and spend more
time with Celia.I could still sort out
a contract after the Games were over.But
I know I can’t do that.I have to suck
it up and make things work.I’ll be going
to Finland next week for a trial and we’ll see what happens.It’s already been setup and confirmed, but I’ll
wait until I’m actually there before I reveal the club.It’s just easier that way in case anything
happens in the interim.
She, in a comedy cartoon style, put one foot like six inches
off the ground and farted.It was the
weirdest thing ever.It sounded like a
trombone.Then she looked around for a
second like she was going to sit but instead just walked away.Keep in mind, we’re not talking about like
some adolescent girl.This woman must
have been in her late-30s.She looked
kind of trashy though, so maybe she was drunk or something.I just figured you’d enjoy that little insult
right at the end of my day.It reminded
me of a Family Guy clip:
I’m back after a week out.I had a wonderful time in London and did too much to even begin to cover
in this blog.Instead, I’ve decided to
put a bunch of photos from the trip and put captions on a few of them.I hope you enjoy!
In contract news, I have a meeting tomorrow with one of the
top people at ESK.I’m keeping an open
mind for that, but I’ve also had opportunities put forth to me in both Sweden
and Finland so I’ll have to take a good look at those.I don’t want to name clubs just yet because
if I re-sign with ESK then they will be irrelevant anyway.If I can’t agree terms with ESK, then I will
take a few trials pretty soon.I’ll let
you know more as I learn more.
And now: London in pictures!
Natural History Museum of London
Bald Eagle: America!
Nice looking Underground station
Hyde Park
Celia and I on the Thames (pronounced Timms) River
Tower Bridge, NOT London Bridge
20-story tall photo of the Royal Family. No idea why it's in black and white.
double decker bus!
one of the Olympic mascots
Cutty Sark ship and museum
Crystal Palace Park. Nice looking park full of incredibly trashy people.
That was my written attempt at a british accent. The reason for that is because I'm in London! I'm visiting Celia for the week and taking in one of my favourite (see what I did there?) cities. So far things have been fun. Celia had the day off from work so we went towards the city center and visited the Natural History Museum of London. It was nice, but also a bit hit or miss. There were really cool exhibits like the one about dinosaurs or birds, but then there were real flops like the fish exhibit or the bug exhibit. All in all, not so bad. I had a good time. We had planned to go to a planetarium, but Celia's childhood memories failed her and we went to two museums that didn't even have a planetarium! We ended up looking like big dummies, but oh well, we kinda are.
Bald Eagle. America!
Celia looks a bit like the Dodo.
The Natural History Museum of London.
Dodo
After the museum, we went to a cake shop that Celia swore was amazing. Of course as we started to walk there it began raining. Typical London. Anyway we got there and the cake was actually really good, so she was right about that. I haven't had cake since I came to Europe so it was a really nice treat.
As for my ankle, things are improving slowly. I can walk more or less without a limp now and the swelling is mostly gone, but I still can't run at all. The pain is mostly now in my leg just above my ankle, so I'm not really sure how to fix that other than just rest. I bought a compression sleeve for my ankle and a reusable ice pack to things should start to heal faster.
Lastly, I spoke with my Swedish agent and he has a couple of teams that are interested in me. I'm not clear on how strong the interest is, but it looks like I will be able to continue to play in Sweden if I choose to do so, even if it's not with Enkoping. I'm set to have contract talks with Enkoping when I return to Sweden in a week, but they have hinted that I will need to take a pay cut and I'm not interested in that. I can barely get by with what I make now. I've also got one or two potential teams based on contacts that I have made in Sweden and I'm pursuing those myself. I'll be sending out a few emails while I'm in London to get that sorted.
In case you were wondering, tonight is a drinking night! Celia is a 'party girl' so I'm gonna get to see her acting partyish. Wish me luck in my first night out in London!
So I spent all of yesterday in Stockholm.By all of the day I obviously only mean
2pm-11pm because, c’mon, I don’t even wake up until 11am.The trip was my 7th to Stockholm
since I arrived in Sweden back in March, but only the 3rd time I
went specifically for leisure.The
Swedish agent I work with got me a couple tickets to an Allsvenskan match
between Djugarden (who could use me, btw) and IFK Norrkoping (who needs a bit
of everything), so I headed down to Stockholm to visit around for a few hours
before the game.
Djugarden and a bunch of geese who were full of themselves.
Now, originally my plan was to do a bit of shopping before
the game.Unfortunately, I never
considered the fact that you can’t go into a professional sporting event with
shopping bags, so those plans got canceled.Instead, I decided to walk around areas of Stockholm that I hadn’t
discovered yet.This plan also
backfired, because my ankle was still awful.It was no longer the size of a baseball – now it was a tennis ball.Still, I soldiered on and for two freaking
hours I walked around downtown Stockholm and vicinity.Among the highlights were a few randomly
placed parks, Djugarden and a very odd military clothing store called ‘Indiana
Store’.Djuagrden was interesting mostly
for the geese-looking birds who had absolutely no fear of humans.In fact, they seemed to have a sort of
contempt for people who dared wander into their path!The lone lowlight of the day was the fact
that I was walking with a severe limp, and I’m pretty sure people mistook me
for homeless.Between the limp, the hair
and the fact that I was wearing a long sleeve button-up shirt despite the
relatively high temps, I don’t blame them.
Indiana Store. Apparently Indiana is synonymous with the military!
Stockholm Stadion: Home of Djugarden.
I met up with Daniel Alund, who is spending his midseason
break in Stockholm, and we had a bite to eat before heading to the Djugarden
game.Djugarden play at a really old
stadium, but despite that it was an enjoyable place to watch a match.In the video you’ll notice the poles holding
up the roof.If they annoy you in the
video, then multiply that by 1000 and you get the feeling I had during the
game.The game itself was pretty good;
Djugarden dominated much of the match but gave up a late goal and tied
1-1.The wing play from Djugarden was
average in my opinion, but then again the oldest winger was 23-years-old so
they can be forgiven for not being the finished product.I took a video of the teams walking out for
the lineups.The stadium only holds
about 12,000 people and wasn’t full, but when the fans got singing and chanting
it was a pretty good atmosphere in there.A little Yanks Abroad side note: One of the Djugarden players is a
winger from UVa.His name is Brian
Span.He played the entire second half
as a replacement for the starting winger who got hurt.He did ok, but didn’t see so much of the
ball.He’s been criticized before for
his defense, but from what I saw he did quite well defensively.He also would have scored had he not slipped
as he was shooting.The grounds staff put
way too much water on the field and it caused a lot of players to slip during
the match.
For those who care, I don’t think that there is much chance
of me returning to ESK after the midseason break.I have not been offered anything, and reading
the papers it seems like the club is not intent on re-signing any of the three
players whose contracts are up this month.They seem instead intent of getting older players on loan who can be
like “team fathers” for our younger players.I think I’ve earned an extension, but that’s not up to me.The club has to do what it thinks is in its
best interest both financially and sportingly.
On the other hand, I’ve finally got some interest from my
emails.I got nowhere emailing top
league teams, so I started emailing 2nd division teams in
Scandinavia and I’ve now gotten a couple of responses.Perhaps I will be starting a trial soon!Also, I’m supposed to speak with the Swedish
agent any day now about potential options in Sweden.Unfortunately for me, none of my good
performances in Division 1 came when scouts were watching, so it’s not easy for
him to find me something.That said, one
of the specific teams he and I discussed will surely be signing at least 2 attacking
players next month, so I believe there’s a chance for me in Sweden still.
Random park in Stockholm.
I don’t know when my next post will be.I’m going to London on Thursday and I don’t
know exactly when I’ll be returning.I
haven’t bought my return flight yet.The
last time I flew into London without a return ticket I was held in custody of
the airport for five hours because my situation seemed like a lie to them.Long story short was that my little “interview”
at the customs stamp area didn’t go well (ie. She didn’t believe that as an
unemployed person I was just going to England for 7-14 days without a plan.)
and my holding cell interview went even worse.This is pretty much how that went:
Officer:“Who are you
staying with?”
Me: “Celia Moran.”
Officer: “Where does she live?”
Me: “I have no idea.Somewhere in the south.I was
gonna call her from the train station.”
Officer: “So you have an international phone?”
Me: “Nope.”
Officer: “Then how were you going to call her?”
Me: “I dunno.Payphone?”
Officer gets up and leaves the room.He comes back 10 minutes later…
Officer: “So the customs agents tell me you play football,
but you currently have no club?”
Me: “Yup.I’m staying
with Celia until I get a call from my agent.”
Officer: “Oh yeah?Who is your agent?How will he
contact you?”
Me: “Email.And his
name is Farrukh...”
*ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE*
I was in holding for another 3-and-a-half hours after that
lol.Let’s hope my next trip to London
Stansted airport isn’t so eventful.
We played our last game before the midseason break today and
lost, 1-0, to IFK Lulea.Just like last
game, we played even in the first half and dominated the second.We still aren’t passing as much as we should
be, but that’s not our biggest problem at the moment.The problem is that we simply cannot
score.We get into seemingly dangerous
situations, but often don’t even get a shot off.In my opinion this ineptitude in front of
goal comes from a lack of training finishing during training.Not shooting drills that have no pressure or
defenders and simulate long distance shots that we’ll never take in the game; I’m
talking about games that have pressure, but are designed to create a bunch of
realistic chances.Then, when those come
in the game they’re second nature.
Now, I’m not blaming our poor finishing today completely on
a lack of training.There are many
contributing factors: some good saves from the goalie, some bad luck and some
simple poor shots.No amount of training
is going to stop those three factors from causing misses.However, we only needed two of our 15 chances
today to be a goal, and I think with confident attackers we get those two goals
and probably more.
After being the Man of the Match last game, I wasn’t quite
as influential today.I still played
well I think, but I was severely hampered by an ankle injury I sustained in the
20th minute.I was chasing a
through ball and fouled the defender in front of me.Ironically, when I pulled him down he fell on
my left leg, trapping my ankle underneath him.It hurt like hell, but wasn’t so bad that I had to come out.My lateral movement was very limited, but I
got on with it and finished the half at about 60%.At halftime, I took a bunch of pain pills and
got an awful tape job and I figured the ankle was as bad as it was going to
get.Unfortunately, I aggravated the
injury and was forced to come out at the worst possible moment.Erik made a good steal just inside our
attacking half, and me and Joel made good runs.Erik played the ball through and honestly either me or Joel could have
been in, but the ball was a bit closer to me to I got there first.The goalie came running out, but he was way
late.I took the first touch with my
right foot past the goalkeeper.With
literally no one between me and my first goal of the season, I never made it to
the ball.The cut across the ‘keeper was
too much for my injured ankle and I fell over in terrible pain.That was the end of my game.From potential glory to devastation in one
second.
Despite the loss I think we played pretty well, just like I
felt after our last two games.Of
course, playing well means nothing without results, but at least we’re moving
in the right direction.To his credit,
Siggi didn’t yell like a madman today.I
don’t know if someone finally told him how distracting it is to the players, or
if he simply didn’t have much to yell about since we were dominating most of
the match.He was kind of a dick to me
when I came off, saying nothing other than, “You should have scored.”Oh, is that what I was supposed to do?I thought I was supposed to injure my ankle
and come off.When I said as much (but
much less sarcastically), he just turned away, acknowledging my statement with
his non-acknowledgment.Almost like he
thought I wasn’t actually injured.As if
for some reason I would just fall over in agony with the goal at my mercy.I didn’t take the exchange personally
though.I know Siggi is super-intense
and the way the game was going (and the season for that matter) didn’t help anybody’s stress levels.
After the match, I was briefly interviewed by the biggest
regional newspaper.He told me that I
played very well, which was nice to hear from a neutral observer.The guy asked me about my contract situation,
and I told him that I was out of contract at the end of the month and that I
was hoping to get an extension worked out over the break.I wouldn’t mind staying at Enkoping for the
rest of the season, but I seriously worry about what Siggi thinks of me.It’s not like I’m on some big contract and I
can just “Wayne Bridge It” and sit on the bench collecting checks.I need to go somewhere where the coach values
my skillset and considers me an important player.I don’t get that feeling at all at ESK, even
though I’ve been one of our best players the past month or so.I think that as soon as we get healthy again
(and we will) that I’ll be buried on the bench.I know that Mtaka, Kerim, Daniel and Ernesto are all ahead of me on the
depth chart, so when they return to full fitness where will that leave me?Wherever I play will be based on how much
value the team sees in me.Unless it’s
an Allsvenskan team, where I have no problem starting at the bottom and working
my way up.But that would also mean that
I’d be earning 3-4x as much at least.To
be clear, this sentiment has nothing to do with ESK in particular.If I was in the same boat on the first place
team in the league, then I would leave and sign with ESK if I thought I’d be
significantly more valued here.The more
I play, the more I can show my talents and get offers and/or trials in the
winter.
So now the midseason break begins.I find this to be a very peculiar practice,
as there seems to be no reason why we couldn’t just play straight through until
the end of the season.Especially in a
lower league, it would give players the opportunity to train/test with
Allsvenskan and Superettan teams after the season if we played straight
through.However that’s not the case and
I’m sure there’s a good reason why, even if I don’t know it.If I don’t have any trials, then I will be
heading to London on Thursday to stay with Celia for a week!I’ve been to London once and loved it.Now, with the Olympics on the way, I think it
will be amazing.The blog might be
sporadic since I’m not bringing my laptop.If there’s no posts don’t worry…I’m still active just not near a
computer!
Lastly, I’ve started to go a bit crazy with Memes
recently.As a result, I’ve decided to
end each post with a meme or something similar.This may last for a week or go on indefinitely, but I hope you enjoy
them as much as I do! I'll start with one about the universe. It's not actually a meme, but it interests me. I watch 'The Universe' every night on Netflix so I'm kinda hooked!
